


A Good Time

by likehandlingroses



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (well wife To Be), F/M, Fluff and Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 22:45:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20553911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likehandlingroses/pseuds/likehandlingroses
Summary: Harry and Ginny have spent weeks debating what Dudley's engagement party will be like. However, neither of them is quite prepared for what the fish-out-water experience will throw at them.





	A Good Time

Harry had spent the two weeks leading up to Dudley’s engagement party preparing for a tolerable--though stuffy--event. He and Ginny would make their excuses after an hour or so, and they’d promptly forget everyone’s name before the wedding invitation came in the mail. 

For his part, Harry considered his moderate expectations to be a signifier of great strides in his relationship with Dudley. The fact that he was invited at all would have been unthinkable only a few years ago, and now he was genuinely looking forward to shaking his cousin’s hand and wishing him and his fiancée well. 

For_ he__r_ part, Ginny believed that Harry was going to doom himself to having as mediocre a time as he expected. 

“I think Dudley’s friends are going to be a laugh,” she kept saying. “He’s so quiet...and ten to one: quiet people’s friends are loud and exciting.” 

“But it’s _ Dudley_,” Harry insisted. Unfortunately, this line of protest meant very little to Ginny, and she remained eager to see how Muggles went about engagement parties. 

“It’s a snobby thing, really…” she admitted to Harry as they approached the block the party was supposed to be held on. “To have a party to celebrate that you’re going to have another party…”

“Bit obnoxious, yeah…”

“I mean, we’re _ going _ to have one, obviously…”

“Well, of course,” Harry said with a smile. 

“Unless we elope, which is a distinct possibility--”

“We’re here,” Harry said, stopping Ginny in front of a small brown bricked building with a drooping ceiling. 

“I thought you said it was a theater?” 

“That’s what it says, look--” Harry pointed at the crumbling sign on the side of the building, which read “Margaret Larson Theater, est. 1962.”

“Oi!” shouted a voice. “Are you Harry?” 

Harry jumped, instinctively reaching for his wand, though Ginny’s hand on his arm kept him from drawing it. His eyes moved to the side of the building, where a handful of people were crowded around what looked like a side entrance, each of them laden with bags and boxes. One of them--a young woman wearing clunky boots--waved a free hand. 

“You’re in the right place!” she called. “Here, we’ll let you in the back way!” 

Harry exchanged a confused look with Ginny before heading over to the chattering group. 

“--I know, no one likes orange, but that’s what Dudley said to get, so what do you want me to--Hi!” The woman in the boots--who Harry now noticed was wearing copious amounts of dark eye makeup--grinned widely at them. “I’m Olive. And there’s...well, there’s everyone here, isn’t there?”

She rattled off a list of names, attaching them to people who looked nothing like anyone Harry would have expected Dudley to know. 

Ginny--who Harry suspected had declared the evening a win the moment she noticed Olive’s nose ring--introduced herself to everyone with an ear-to-ear smile. 

“It’s a bit smaller than usual for a theater, isn’t it?” she asked Olive as they entered the building. 

“It’s a black-box space,” Olive explained. “See, Val was my roommate at uni, and we were doing a show here...and that’s where she and Dudley met. Up in the lightbox…”

“So you’re _ Valerie’s _ friends, then?” Harry asked, reassured by the thought. 

“‘Course, but most of us knew Dudley first,” Olive said. “We’ve been friends since school, me and him.” 

Now Harry was more confused than ever. 

The black box was aptly named. Perhaps--if he were looking to be quite precise--Harry would have called it a “dim black box.” In either case, the location would have seemed entirely ill-fitting for the occasion, were it not for the fact that everyone there appeared to be having the exact sort of evening they’d hoped for. 

“I told you,” Ginny whispered, as she and Harry scanned a room filled with young people, most of whom wouldn’t look out of place at a Weird Sisters concert. Some of them were standing at the spindly, circular cocktail tables topped with haphazard bouquets of yellow and white daisies, but many were on the floor, legs criss-crossed, as if they were in their living room. 

In all, it was nothing like the stiff, formal occasion Harry had expected. Despite Ginny’s enthusiasm, Harry wasn’t certain he preferred this new, jarring picture of his cousin’s life. He was pleased as anything that there was no sign of any Dursley relatives, and he couldn’t say he was sorry that people looked to be having a good time. 

Even still, the discordance between Harry’s expectations and reality made him uneasy, though he tried to hide this as Dudley approached, his arm around the waist of his fiancée, Valerie Stackpole. 

Harry--who had never met Valerie--was relieved that at least one facet of the evening might prove comprehensible. Though he suspected Aunt Petunia would have quibbled with Valerie’s sandals and the cut of her dress, her makeup was soft and she had a daisy tucked behind her ear. A well-to-do young lady too modest to shout about it...just who Harry had imagined. And good for Dudley...

“I’ve heard so much about you!” Valerie shook Harry’s hand vigorously. “Both of you! Oh my God...this is _ amazing _!” 

An American. And there went Harry’s only tentative grip on the situation…

The next few minutes were a blur of questions and answers that Harry had thankfully prepared half-truths for. Dudley looked about as unsettled as Harry felt; thankfully, Valerie was eager to pick up every thread of the conversation (and then some). An athlete herself, she pressed Ginny with a litany of questions regarding her supposed football career. Harry held his breath, but Ginny was a quick liar, and Valerie was too good-natured to pick up on some of the less compelling falsehoods. 

Nevertheless, Harry breathed a sigh of relief when she cut the conversation short to introduce them to her family--minus her parents, who Valerie said were in “airline hell.” 

“But they’ll be here tomorrow?” Valerie’s niece, Abby, sounded anxious. At ten years old, she was the only child in attendance (which Valerie smoothly explained by mentioning how excited she was that Abby had agreed to be a flower girl). 

“We think so,” Valerie told her before looking at Harry and Ginny with a knowing expression. “Abby’s never been to London, so we were going to take her exploring...and of course, Grandma and Grandpa have to be here for that…”

“Haven’t you gotten a drink yet?” Dudley asked Abby, who hadn’t looked at all comforted by Valerie’s answer. 

Abby frowned. “I thought they were all grown-up drinks.”

“No, we’ve got all kinds of soft drinks and juices back at the bar,” Dudley said with a smile. “What’s your favorite?”

“Orange, but you probably don’t have that one…” Abby said, a world-weary edge to her voice. 

Dudley exchanged a look with Valerie, who was grinning. 

“We do, actually,” he said, and Abby immediately turned to her mother in excitement.

“No one ever has orange!” she exclaimed. 

“That’s good luck, then, isn’t it?” Harry could see from Dudley’s somewhat bemused smile that the success of the little surprise had thrown him off his guard. “If you want, Maggie’ll make it up all fancy for you at the bar so it looks more like the grown-up drinks.”

Eyes wide, Abby followed Dudley over to the bar.

“He’s so cute, isn’t he?” Valerie cooed to her sister. “God, it makes me so sad when girls talk about their boyfriends or husbands like they’re pigs or something...I love him so much.”

Harry could see her point. It was endearing, watching Dudley help Abby choose which glass she wanted her orange soda served in. There was an easiness to his smile and gait when he spoke to his friends at the bar, introducing them to the girl that would soon be his niece. 

“I told him they’d get along,” Valerie said. “He was so anxious...I think he’s just freaking out about his parents not being here.” She shot Harry the briefest of looks before continuing. “Which was the right decision, obviously...but it’s hard” 

Harry thought of Valerie’s sister, who’d come all the way from “SoCal” with her daughter. Valerie’s parents, who would have made it had they not missed their connecting flight. They’d crossed an ocean to be there, and Dudley hadn’t trusted his family enough to ask them to make a short car ride.

Except for me, Harry thought. He’d trusted me. 

Somehow, that made the oddity of the evening less burdensome than before. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! (Very) loosely inspired by the song "London Boy" by Taylor Swift.


End file.
